The sky above the ruins burned faintly red — not with flame, but with memory.
Sid sat alone at the edge of the world's wound, the cracked horizon bleeding faint light through drifting ash. His armor was half-broken; his hands, raw and scorched, still glowed faintly with the fractured chains coiling his wrists.
The echoes of the branded warrior's scream still lived in the air, long after sound had died.
For hours, Sid said nothing. He simply watched the faint embers swirl around his boots, the chains flickering weakly as they tried — and failed — to hold steady.
He had won.
But victory had never felt so hollow.
A soft voice broke the silence.
"You're fading."
Sid looked up.
Nox stood before him, a silhouette of light and shadow, her form gently flickering in and out of visibility — a projection straining through unstable space. Her usually calm eyes were sharp, searching.
Sid forced a bitter smile. "Guess the chains didn't appreciate the last fight."
"They're not supposed to," Nox replied, stepping closer. "They're meant to hold back a god-killer, Sid. Not survive you tearing through reality."
He gave a dry laugh, then winced as the chains seared his skin. "Then maybe I'm doing their job wrong."
Nox's expression softened. "You always were."
She crouched beside him, hand hovering near the glowing sigils on his wrists. The heat was enough to make her projection flicker. "They're fracturing faster than I expected. Each time you draw on the daemon flame, the link weakens. Soon, they won't hold anything back... not Ravh'Zereth, not Velgrin, not even you."
Sid's eyes stayed fixed on the ground. "Then what am I supposed to do?"
Nox hesitated — then stood straight. "You have to choose."
Sid looked up sharply. "Choose?"
"The chains or the flame," she said quietly. "You can't have both anymore."
A long silence followed. Wind whispered through the ruins, scattering ash like snow.
Sid clenched his fists, jaw tightening. "You're telling me to give up control or give up myself."
"I'm telling you to survive," Nox countered. "The chains were meant to protect you... and everyone around you. But now Velgrin's interference has made them unstable. They're feeding off your essence, twisting your flame. If they break naturally, you won't be you anymore."
Sid exhaled shakily. "And if I remove them?"
Nox's gaze dropped. "Then Ravh'Zereth will flood through you. His power, his will... everything you've fought to resist will consume you."
Sid laughed again — a hollow sound that cracked in his throat. "So either I lose myself to a god, or I keep wearing his leash. Perfect."
"Sid... "
He stood suddenly, the movement sharp, angry. "You don't get it, Nox! Every choice in this world has already been made for me. The vessel, the demon, the chains, the prophecy..." He clenched his fists, the black-crimson glow flaring violently. "Even this power isn't mine. It's borrowed, cursed, chained from the start!"
The flames surged outward, black lightning rippling through the air. Nox steadied herself against the pressure.
"Then what do you want, Sid?" she asked, voice cutting through the storm. "What do you choose?"
Sid froze.
No one had ever asked him that before.
Not what he feared. Not what he resisted.
But what he chose.
He looked at his hands — at the faint cracks spreading along the chains, each fracture pulsing like a heartbeat.
Ravh'Zereth's whisper slid through his mind, soft and sickly sweet.
"Break them, vessel. Let me show you the meaning of flame unbound."
Velgrin's voice followed, distant, hollow.
"You cannot chain fire."
And somewhere beneath them both, another voice — quiet, almost forgotten.
" You can be more than what they made you."
Nox's voice.
Lucien's laughter.
The fragments of humanity he still clung to.
Sid's shoulders trembled. His eyes burned — not with power, but with tears.
He whispered, voice raw, "I won't be your vessel. Not his. Not anyone's."
Nox tilted her head, her projection flickering with faint static. "Then what will you be?"
Sid's flames flared — slow, deliberate — until the black and crimson light fused into something new. A faint silver edge began to ripple through the fire, unnatural and pure.
He looked up, his gaze steady now, certain.
"Something that doesn't exist yet."
Meanwhile at Velgrin's Sanctum.
The chamber of the Seventh Seal pulsed with rhythmic heat. Velgrin stood before a colossal sphere of silent fire, his hands raised as runes carved themselves into the air around him.
The Seventh Seal glowed bright — brighter than any before. The air itself bent under its gravity.
Azareth appeared behind him, his presence trembling the void. "You're forcing the Seals open too quickly. Reality won't hold."
Velgrin didn't look back. "It doesn't need to hold. It needs to yield."
"The gods will intervene—"
Velgrin smiled faintly. "The gods are already ash."
He pressed his hand to the Seventh Seal — and it screamed as it broke.
Flame erupted outward, swallowing the chamber in light.
Velgrin's voice rolled like thunder.
"The Eighth rises. The Ascension nears completion."
Back to Sid.
The world seemed quieter after that, though no less tense. Sid stood at the edge of a black ravine — the fault where the storm had split the land.
His chains were still there, but different now — glowing not with suppression, but resonance. The symbols pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat.
Nox watched him carefully. "What are you doing?"
Sid's voice was calm. "Forging my own path."
"You can't just—"
"I can," he interrupted. "The gods chained the daemon. Velgrin tried to brand the world. Ravh'Zereth wants to consume it. But if flame can destroy, it can also create."
He raised his hand. The black-crimson fire rippled — and that strange silver hue shimmered again, fragile but radiant.
"I'll reshape it. Fire that burns without devouring. Power that obeys no master."
Nox's eyes widened slightly. "You're trying to rewrite the flame itself."
Sid smiled faintly. "No. I'm trying to unmake its rules."
A surge of power flared, shaking the ground beneath him. The cracks in his chains began to glow white-hot, but this time — they didn't burst. They sang.
It was as if something within him had started to understand the balance between restraint and release.
He took a slow breath. "Tell Lucien I'm not running anymore."
"Sid—"
"Whatever Velgrin is building," he said softly, "I'll end it before it ends everything else."
Nox's projection flickered one last time, her voice quieter now. "You're walking a path no one ever has."
"Then maybe it's about time someone did."
Sid looked toward the horizon — where distant cracks in the sky pulsed with dull red light.
Somewhere out there, Velgrin's false sun was already beginning to rise.
And Sid knew — when it came, when the Ascension began — the chains that once bound him would either destroy him…
…or become his creation.
He turned away from the ruins, flames trailing behind like ribbons of blood and light, and whispered to himself:
"If fire can't be chained — then I'll teach it why it should choose to stay."